The Winooski — Vermont’s premiere local satire site — is founded and edited by Adam Hall.
MONTPELIER – Vermont consistently tops the charts as the “greenest” state in the nation, and now the governor is taking the environmentally friendly state a step further by banning the destructive practice of recycling. “Recycling” is the process by which Americans continue to create trash in enormous quantities, and then pick out the most poisonous and deadly bits to ship off to third-world countries where poor workers slave for pennies among the refuse until they get sick and die.
“There is no habit more destructive to our environment than recycling,” Vermont Governor Phil Scott said as he signed legislation banning recycling forever. “The most evil part of the whole process is how it assuages our guilt over our addiction to consumption, and turns our eyes away from what our plastic waste is doing to the planet. Well, not in my state. Not anymore. If Vermonters want to use plastic, they can keep it around after they’re done with it. We will no longer be accepting plastic at our landfills, dumps, or transfer stations. Everyone can figure out what to do with their own trash from now on.”
The decision was met with mixed reactions by Vermonters, some of whom said the never recycled anyway and were glad to stop hiding it, while others said the figured it was coming, as recycling was more of a “Democrat thing.” Still, some residents were furious over the sudden lack of state-funded personal clean-up.
“Recycling is good! They told us in school!” insisted one online commenter. “Everyone knows that when you recycle, they take all the plastic and make new stuff out of it! I don’t even think they make new plastic anymore, because why would you need to? Recycling! Come on people! Save the environment!”
Members of Vermont’s burgeoning homeless community are set to protest the decision, which will remove the five cent deposits from beverage containers and could deal a damaging financial blow to anyone who relies on picking up empties for income. One protester even went so far as to suggest that the state use some of the revenue it will be saving by cutting all recycling programs, and use it to better fund programs for homeless, low income, and mentally ill Vermonters.
“Oh, that’s not going to happen,” chuckled Governor Scott. “I was thinking we should just lower taxes for middle class Vermonters. You know, anyone making between $100,000 and $500,000. And we could probably lower those taxes even a little more if we got rid of a few more schools. How many are we down to now? What about merging Winooski and Colchester schools? Has anyone thought of that?”